Dark Rose
by J S Arnold
Summary: The end shouldn't have to be the begginning, but for Piper it seems that way. It seems that they will not stop hunting her until she is one of them...
1. Chapter 1

In the office, people would not stop talking and the printers seemed to be endlessly spitting out pieces of paper. He could see all of this, but the sounds were muffled, distant, as he finished typing the email. He focused so hard on what he had written, deciding whether he should put 'Yours Faithfully, or Sincerely, that he barely registered the sharp tap on his shoulder. This email was to a friend, but he has written it to plead for his help.

"Paul?" Mathew Dover said from behind him. He had his jacket slung over one shoulder and his sleek blond hair was no longer combed back. He looked at the computer screen and frowned, "Who's Victor?"

He held the mouse button down for a long moment before he sent the email – half out of apprehension of what he had just begun, and also because his friend had asked exactly the wrong question. He had hoped that Matt would ask a question he could answer. Somehow the words caught in his throat; he could barely admit the truth to himself.

"He's nobody." he said as he held down the power button, instead of shutting the computer down properly. Within his chest, his heart thumped painfully hard – and he wondered if he was having a heart attack; never before had he influenced the destiny of another being, and now he feared that he would regret it.

But in the end, did his feelings matter at all? If he hadn't wanted his heart to be broken, he would never have married, and never have had a child. He had lost his wife to a man he hadn't known, and his daughter would soon be lost to an old and faithful friend. If his feelings mattered he wouldn't be loosing everything, he would have everything.

"Lets go – I want to get home before it gets too dark," he said as he stared out the panoramic windows at the the setting sun, lines marking his face as he struggled not to cry.

Piper sat back in bed and wondered what she would wear to the party that weekend. It was at Jake Wood's house and she had never been so excited. At last – at last – he has received her signal. He had spoken to her just that afternoon for the first time. She had walked straight into him in the hallway and she dropped all her books. Other people stepped past, or even over, her but he had thought to stop. She remembered the way her stomach had flip-flopped inside her, and how when he asked her if she would like to come to his place her heart rose to her throat. She smiled at the memory of how their fingers had brushed.

The phone began to ring shrilly from downstairs and it took her a few moments to respond. She had been thinking about his smile and the sudden sound awoke her from the daydream. She almost tripped on the last stair in her haste to get to the phone before it stopped ringing, but she caught hold of the end-table seconds before she would have hit the floor. There was a beep as the answer phone began the pre-recorded message. She began to get to her feet but the voice coming from the little speakers on the hub made her sit back down. She recognised it, but she didn't know where from.

"Paul, it's Victor. I got your message and I'm on the plane now. Does Piper know anything at all? Make sure she does before I get there – I need to get her far from there, and quick." Then the recorder beeped, signalling the end of the message.

Paul was not ashamed to say that he was scared of the dark, because unlike most of the population, he knew what lurked in the shadows. He knew that it was dangerous on the streets these days, everyone in this part of town did, but he knew the reason why. He knew what lurked in the shadows.

The street he lived on was one of the safest in the country, a resent report read, and he hadn't chosen it by chance. When the danger became too real in Lancaster he had taken the first flight to Southampton, his daughter in tow. She had to be safe, and so far things had looked to be that way here. He had thought that this city would become their permanent home. Maybe that was why he had made this decision. He scolded himself for not telling her to be ready for Victor. When his friend knocked at his door, she would think it was a stranger.

A/N: Please tell me what you think, it makes it easier to carry on


	2. Chapter 2

Piper had been listening to music when someone knocked at the door. She had been listening to heavy metal, like she always did when she felt too calm, but even with the noise of guitars and drums she could distinguish the sound in the hallway outside. At first she thought that it would be her dad; he was always forgetting his keys, and the door was the kind that locked automatically.

As she approached the door she felt a strange sense of foreboding, but that was silly, and she grabbed the keys from the side table. She thought she wouldn't have to check through the little peep-hole high up in the door, who else used that pattern in their knock but her father? She heard the door shudder as she inserted the key and turned it in the lock. She hesitated before pulling it open, her stomach full of butterflies and a tension that was painful.

He waited until she opened the door halfway before he forced his way inside.

Paul snatched his mobile from his jacket pocket as he rode the escalator down to the underground car-park, the phone almost slipping from his finger with the sweat that coated them. He had had the foresight to program his house number into the speed-dial and he held down the number one for long enough that the phone began dialling. He wasn't watching where he was going and almost strode head-on into a car. It beeped at him but he could only hear his own voice on the answer phone telling him that no one was home. He tried again, and again, but it had the same response.

At last, he searched the phone-book application and found Victor's number. He dialled it quickly and he answered on the first ring – as if he had been anticipating this call. All he could do was say one word, "Piper," but that was enough. Victor said something quickly and then hung up, leaving Paul confused and not assured.

He almost sprinted to his car, his heart racing in his chest and his keys digging into the flesh of his palm. He shouldn't have gone to work today, of all days to call in sick, and he shouldn't have left her alone in the house for one moment. His home, her home, would be the first place Felix would look, and a sickening feeling told him that he waited for her there. He cursed himself for not warning her that morning, for insisting that she do something after school, anything that was not at the house. Why hadn't he prepared; he had known all along that this day would come, and he hadn't set in place even the simplest of protection against this.

Victor didn't need a car, if anything it would slow him down, he just needed his legs. For once he wasn't afraid of the implications of being caught on camera running faster than any man should be able. He only had his fear as a companion, but at least fear made him quick to respond to any threat he could face. He thought that he could almost hear his heart beating in his chest as he rounded the corner to the place where she lives.

Even when he was miles from the sea, he could smell the salt in the waves and the seaweed the sea spat out. He ran through fields of grass as he neared the house. It backed onto a busy road, and the sound of the traffic, the cars and the lorries, was deafening to his ears. He knew there was a reason his own home was far out into the country-side, among the trees, and this was the reason.

As he ran unseen around the corner to her street, he saw a dog lying on the ground. It was a border-collie and it had it's ears pulled straight back. It looked up at his arrival and in it's eyes he saw a sadness which was almost human. He recognised it – the expression of having lost something loved.

The front door was open, but even his keen senses could not pick up anything from inside the house. It was eerily silent – not even a heartbeat or a breath. He looked at the carpet of the small hallway, seeing indications of a struggle, and thought he saw crimson scratches on the cream wall.

He felt his heart plummet from his throat and he almost shed a tear; he knew who had done this, he saw the signs, and he knew also that it would be up to him to get her back.

He dialled Paul's number and said, "She's gone." before he hung up.


	3. Chapter 3

Victor was fast. He ran to the front door so quickly that not even the nosiest of neighbours could have followed his movements. To them he would have simply dissolved into thin air like a ghost. There was a pounding in his head as he surveyed the broken door and saw traces of blood, recognising the scent of her instantly. The hall was rank with the smell of sweat, tears, and of blood. Somehow he knew it was her's.

Slowly, like the predator he was, he entered the house and searched for the largest splatter of blood. He found it on the radiator, where she had no doubt fallen and hit her head, and he felt another wave of fury overcome him. He hit the wall, felt it crumble beneath his fist, and sank to his knees on the carpeted floor. There was splatters of blood there too, and he dipped his head low. He sniffed the crimson and felt himself grimace – she had bled a lot during the assault. Her attacker hadn't shed a single drop of sweat, but that wasn't surprising in the least when the little girl was as ferocious as a newborn kitten – which made him all the more angry. She couldn't help who she was any more than he could.

He ran his finger down where most of the blood was until his fingers where slick with the darkening liquid – an indication that he could have arrived maybe only a minute or two too late. He sniffed it first and then licked his fingers slowly. He saw at once her frightened face and the terror in her eyes. The blood held memories that grew even more disturbing as he tasted it, and as the scene grew more violent he wished when he closed his eyes it would go away. He saw what took her and his fist clenched tighter. He recognised the fire in the eyes of the demon, because it was the same fire which possessed his late wife, before he had murdered them both with the same silver dagger he touched now with his gloved fingers. Before long he would use it again.

Piper watched the man approach her carefully. She noticed that he also watched her unblinkingly, his eyes a strange silver that she supposed were contacts, that he was not a normal man. Behind him, other men and women crawled on their hands and knees. He didn't stop walking until she had to stretch to look up at him. He must have been almost seven foot tall and he stood over her like a mountain. The room was silent until she screamed; he had touched her neck only lightly but the contact sent an electric shock through her. She convulsed on the floor as the demon smiled down at her.

As she laid down on the ground, she felt her body begin to shake as if in the grips of a seizure – uncontrollably twitching, her mouth going slack. The pain was immanence but she could not scream this time. She could only stare upwards at the pitch-black ceiling, waiting for the pain to stop, and the sensation of being out-of-control was barely palpable. She wanted to scream but no sound came from her mouth.

She hadn't noticed him move, but the man had come to kneel beside her. He took her hand and whispered something which was inaudible with the ringing in her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him grasping a red-hot poker from the burning coal of the fire, and before she could move her body he pressed into her chest. She couldn't scream because the pain was too great, and she couldn't hear what the man was saying, even when she saw his lips formed words.


End file.
